Dr Zeynep Baharoglu obtained her PhD in Microbial Genetics from the Sorbonne Université in 2008, where she studied bacterial genetics and resolution of DNA replication conflicts. She then carried out postdoctoral research at the Institut Pasteur from 2008 to 2013, focusing on horizontal gene transfer and bacterial stress responses, before joining the institute as a permanent researcher and subsequently establishing her research group.
Baharoglu is now Director of Research at the Institut Pasteur and head of the Epitranscriptomic Responses to Antimicrobial Stress team (Institut Pasteur & CNRS IBPC). Their work now explores how RNA modifications and epitranscriptomic mechanisms are involved in bacterial adaptation to stress.
About the Epitranscriptomic Responses to Antimicrobial Stress research group
In the lab, we are focusing on bacterial mechanisms of survival in hostile environments containing sub-lethal antibiotic concentrations.
The emergence of antibiotic resistance is increasingly associated with low antibiotic concentrations in the aquatic environment, such as lakes and rivers neighboring hospitals and pharmaceutical industries in certain countries, and in aquaculture farms, where antibiotics are regularly used.
These environments are host to various bacteria (among which Vibrios). Low antibiotic concentrations can also be found in different compartments of the body upon antibiotic treatment: for example, in the lungs where they diffuse at different rates, or in the urine at the end of antibiotic treatment.
Research on antibiotic resistance usually focuses on resistance mechanism to high antibiotic doses which kill bacterial cells. Because we are studying the effects of low antibiotic doses, we can identify new targets involved in antibiotic resistance development. One new factor in antibiotic tolerance that we have recently identified involves bacterial RNA modifications.
